Congress must clarify limits of gene-editing technologies

Date:
October 21, 2020
Source:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
Summary:
How the next Congress decides to handle the issue editing human
sperm and eggs will affect the science, ethics and financing
of genomic editing for decades to come, said a law professor
who studies the ethical and policy implications of advanced
biotechnologies.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Genome editing of human embryos represents one of the most contentious potential scientific applications today. But what if geneticists could
sidestep the controversy by editing sperm and eggs instead?

========================================================================== According to a new paper co-written by a University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign legal expert who studies the ethical and policy implications
of advanced biotechnologies, how the next Congress decides to handle the
issue will affect the science, ethics and financing of genome editing
for decades to come.

Although there are a number of statutes and federal appropriation riders
that take as their bioethical center the human embryo, none exist that
govern the editing of "gametes" -- that is, sperm and eggs, said Jacob
S. Sherkow, a professor of law at Illinois.

"The current federal funding ban is predicated on a concept of bioethics
that focuses on the embryo, and that's because there's widespread
recognition in U.S. society that embryos have a certain moral salience
that other biological components don't," he said. "But with advances in biotechnology, you can get around that. You can sidestep editing embryos
by editing sperm and eggs, instead.

"Regardless of how one thinks about whether embryos should get special bioethical status in this context, you have to understand that the same technology can now be used on sperm and eggs. So federal funding bans
on genetically editing embryos with technologies such as CRISPR may
not extend to future generations of the technology -- and those future generations are coming quickly." In the paper, Sherkow and co-authors
Eli Y. Adashi of Brown University and I.

Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School discuss how the editing of sperm and
eggs differs from embryos from a bioethical and U.S. legal perspective.



========================================================================== "This is particularly timely for two reasons," he said. "One,
genome-editing technology is getting more effective, cheaper and safer
to use every day; and two, this is an election year. We're going to seat
a new Congress in January, and whether to continue down this path is
something that the new Congress is going to have to decide." The main
statute that prohibits the clinical use of heritable genomic editing is
an annually renewed Congressional appropriations rider first put into
law in 2015.

According to Sherkow and his colleagues, the rider was initially dropped
into an appropriations bill with little discussion. The language was
briefly removed last year, prompting a debate about whether it applied
to certain mitochondrial-replacement therapies and ought to be reinserted.

"The debate was firmly centered on the editing of embryos, but no
legislator considered whether the language also applied to the editing
of sperm and eggs," Sherkow said. "And there are strong arguments to be
made that the plain text of the rider does not apply to sperm and eggs."
If the appropriations rider doesn't apply to editing sperm and eggs,
then those who believe that such editing is just as problematic as
editing embryos "should seek to alter the rider to make it apply to
sperm and egg editing, as well," Sherkow said.



========================================================================== "Some of the ethical concerns raised about editing embryos are applicable
to editing sperm and eggs while others are not," he said. "Objections
to embryonic gene editing due to the need to destroy human embryos
in research and clinical applications are quite different for sperm
and eggs." Those who have opposed the destruction of embryos, including members of some religious communities, haven't raised similar objections
to sperm and egg editing, Sherkow said.

"Proponents of embryonic personhood claims emphasize that the genetic
code of the early embryo is set at the time when sperm and egg form a
zygote. But sperm and egg editing occurs before that moment, toppling the
claim that editing gametes alters 'a person,' and is really more analogous
to selecting a sperm or egg donor." At the same time, policymakers
should be heartened by the notion that "we don't necessarily have to
stop research on these technologies because now we have the ability to
do it in gametes as opposed to embryos," said Sherkow, who also is an
affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

"The new Congress that's seated in January should pay attention to the development of genome-editing technologies like these, and should be more attuned to the extent of what limits it wants to put on research, given
that such research can proceed without some of the moral trappings that
have jammed prior Congresses," he said. "For those who think that there
are important differences between embryos and gametes, this may offer
an opportunity to develop a different regulated pathway for sperm and
egg editing." The paper was published in the Journal of Law, Medicine
and Ethics.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Illinois_at_Urbana-Champaign,_News_Bureau.

Original written by Phil Ciciora. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. I. Glenn Cohen, Jacob S. Sherkow, Eli Y. Adashi. Gene Editing
Sperm and
Eggs (not Embryos): Does it Make a Legal or Ethical Difference? The
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2020; 48 (3): 619 DOI: 10.1177/
1073110520958891 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201021111558.htm

--- up 8 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)